I grew up a poor boy, in the middle of the woods.

Look at this blue hair, the funny nail polish, the eye-patch, and remember, know, that I grew up in a plywood shack, in the middle of the woods.

Our well was a big metal pipe drilled into the ground; I’d throw a bucket into it, and haul up the water on a chain.

We had no electricty, no phone, no running water. Until I was eleven, I took my baths at the kitchen sink. A hole ran out the wall from the sink, letting the water trickle outside. 

We lived up North, where the winters were minus twenty for months, minus thirty for weeks, and usually even minus forty for a day or two. Short dark days, filled up with cold wet snow. 

When I was growing up, my step-dad bought gas for his truck in five-dollar increments. We’d had more six-packs of beer in the fridge, than cartons of milk. Yeah, we didn’t have much food, but there was always cheap beer in the fridge. God help us all if there wasn’t.

Where I live now, is one of the richest and most civilized places on the globe. It’s a mecca for human rights and cheap and easy medications. And I love it, I love it here. It’s a wonderful city, full of wonderful ways to live. 

But I grew up a poor-boy, in the middle of the woods.